The fact that the adoption of social networking by FAs is increasing is quite positive given the slow start by the financial services sector with regard to integrating social media into a firm’s marketing mix.  Advisor proficiency with social media marketing will certainly follow once three criteria have been met:

1. Firms must overcome their fear of regulatory compliance issues and develop policies and programs to educate their advisor base on compliant social networking. 
2. Advisor training must move beyond compliance and focus on advancing the social media marketing competencies of the advisor providing a framework for integrating this communications tool into their practice development efforts.
3. Thought leadership as Lauren Boyman rightly points out, while challenging, is the key to competitive differentiation.  Investing the time and energy to develop and share content that is relevant to a client and that has the ability to influence the conversations taking place in the social media marketplace will yield the greatest benefit.  

Fortunately the focus has shifted from “Should I utilize social media?” to “How can I optimize my social networking activities?”  This is an important shift and none to soon.  Why?  Adoption rates for social media continue to escalate across socio-economic and demographic segments, among B2C and B2B marketers and across geographical boundaries.  Consider that Facebook now has over 700 million users, Twitter over 200 million and LinkedIn over 100 million users.  For FAs, the chances are very high that many of their high net worth and mass affluent clients and prospects are among the user base of the aforementioned social networking sites. 

There is only one question to be asked if an FA is still wondering whether or not to utilize social media; “Do you want to be a participant in the dialogue or risk being left out of the equation with a rapidly growing segment of the population?”   Interested in learning more about how one large financial services institution is using social media?  Check out this article in Registered Rep.